Hacking draws raves on Superbike tour

Sunday

Mar 15, 1998 at 12:01 AM

CHRIS WINSTON

A trip to a local motorcycle shop three years ago changed Jamie Hacking's life forever.

It was there that Hacking was convinced to go to a motorcycle road course driving school in Savannah, where he soon was out-driving his instructors and had to be pulled off of the racetrack. "It was a pretty big deal," he said. Little did the England native know that it would lead him to becoming one of the top rookie drivers in AMA Superbike National tour this season. Prior to that 1995 driving school, Hacking had competed on motorcycle circuits for years, but he never considered the road course driving that he does now -- especially when he considered dragging knee pads on the curves going at awesome speeds. With one year on the amateur circuit and just two more with partial sponsorship from Suzuki and Kawasaki, Hacking's biggest break came this past year, when he signed to drive for a Yamaha factory team with teammate Rich Oliver. Hacking awed the rest of his factory team from the very beginning, when a half-day of testing at Daytona this winter netted times just as good as the veteran drivers after three days. Since then, Hacking has been impressing everyone else, including himself. In the first two of the circuit's 14 races, Phoenix and Daytona, Hacking has finished fifth and third, respectively, and now he has a championship on his mind. "To begin with, I just wanted to go out and get the experience and drive around," he said. "Then, I wanted to go out and maybe finish in the top 10 in the points standings. But now, I'm thinking about winning when I go out there and winning the championship. "I never thought I would be here at this point." That trek for the title will continue with next month's race at Laguna Seca, one of Hacking's favorite tracks. "It's beautiful, it's one of the nicest courses we visit this season," he said. It's taken some adjustment for Hacking to get on the superbikes, but he has taken the learning curve with amazing quickness. "The biggest difference is the horsepower," he said. "You've got to know when to back off. There are so many other places you can make up the time." Hacking began racing at age four in England, in the Italjet Motocross 50, after he finally bugged his parents enough to buy him a dirtbike. After coming to Spartanburg in 1980, Hacking and his family traveled around racing on the motocross circuit, with a lot of success. He didn't race at all in 1992, and when he resumed his driving career, he traded in his dirt bike for a street bike, where he began the amateur tour in 1994 -- at the age of 22. But Hacking never considered that his love for racing on the bike would lead him to this point -- thinking of going back to Europe to participate on the World Superbike team in the coming years. "Hopefully, a few years from now, I'll still have Yamaha sponsorship, and I'll be driving on the Europe team," he said. "That would be great."